YES, WE GET IT. SPORE WAS THE BEST GAME THERE.Somehow people seem to infer from the fact that he DIDN'T mention it that he didn't like it. Face it, he's Yahtzee; if he had to say something about it it would have to be negative, and it's SPORE!! No one wants that!

I'm so glad someone in the reviewing business finally agrees that pre-rendered trailers don't count.

And by that logic Sony should automatically be disqualified from getting anything save for the "cockteasing liar of the year award" for every E3 because that's pretty much everything they trot out. Of course, seeing as how they ALWAYS do this (lest we forget the Killzone bullcrap they tried to pass off on us) congnitive dissonance has taken over and that's why gamers cream themselves over 30 seconds of Kratos standing in a thunderstorm while raindrops keep falling on his head.

Can't say I agree with Yahtzee's view of the new Prince of Persia. I love PoP, and am probably one of the SoT trilogy's biggest fans, but aside from the graphical style (which is really only prominent on that of the character models), the changes from Sands of Time to this are actually pretty marginal (at least more marginal than what SoT changed from the PoP series before it), and by gameplay standards, sound like pretty decent changes to me. Remember what Ubisoft said about The Two Thrones? About an "open-ended city of Babylon"? Not only did they take that claim and shove it up their ass, but they spat on the combat engine with the weakest excuses for QTE's of it's generation (along with Kingdom Hearts II's reaction commands) which were more prone to glitches than Warrior Within's sound effects. I know I'm making it sound seriesou there, but that's actually just nitpicking.

My point is that in several plays of a particular gameplay demo, there showed varied elements that at least begin to justify their promise of open-endedness for this game (though I wouldn't expect any kind of Assassin's Creed-esque free-roaming). Now, I'm not going out on a limb and saying that this new PoP is gonna be as big a hit as the first Sands of Time was, but as a fan, I'm at least gonna stay in touch with the updates, and with what updates I've seen, I haven't felt like I've been shot through the heart by a false promise (like when I played The Two Thrones while still holding them to their promise of "open-endedness" but got a game that, while still plenty good, was the biggest pipe-run of the trilogy).

I think people are missing out on Yahtzee's message in this episode. I've been watching the G4 coverage of E3 on my OnDemand network, and it made me sick. It's like that one Penny Arcade strip making fun of previewers ("How awesome is it?", "So Awesome") following it almost completely. There seems to be no skepticism in the games journalism industry these days (especially if you consider ad-space).

I remember reading glowing previews of Drake of the 99 Dragons in every magazine and site several years ago. I was ready for the game to be a ton of fun, only to watch them pull out their 1.005040334 out of 10 reviews when it came out. Everybody thought Killzone 2 was going to be the damned second coming when we saw that pre-rendered cutscene a few years back, and from what I saw it looks like any other Aliens space marine shooter that's released twice a month now. It just doesn't hurt to have a previewer say "Hey, let's not cut off our hair and ghoulies to worship this game over a pre-rendered CG cutscene or the announcement of one new gun quite yet."

I think that's why a lot of these newer original games like Portal get the raving reviews they do. Since they don't have arena-sized development studios, they can't get IGN.com to pull of a weekly developer's journal or some crap, so when they do come out there's no lofty expectation to meet, so we're taken aback by how good they are. I think once Spore comes out, it will be pretty damned fun, but I'm going to follow Molyneux's law which says that not everything promised week one will be there on release date (i.e. don't expect it to be all that and the whole damned Frito-Lay's factory).

modafekshen:Spore won fucking "Game of Show". Doing a rundown of a convention without even mentioning the supposed best game there doesn't seem like much thought went into the review.It was more like an argument for pessimism than anything else. Wait the video was about E3?

Unless Spore comes with an express ticket to the Garden of Eden, it won't live up to its hype.

The fact that Spore is a Molyneux game is reason enough for me to not expect anything out of it. The man may have once been a gaming god, but I really feel he's getting a bit too full of himself. Fable 1 was really not that good, and Black and White 2 was a stripped down piece of crap. Some of his comments in past articles are also showing signs that he really doesn't think that he can do any wrong.

rebochan:Oh, except that the Fallout 3 feature he talked about is something you can choose to turn on or off. Turn it on and its evocative of a turn-based combat system from the original two games. Turn it off and it's like any other FPS. No cutscenes necessary.

It's a FPS with a gimmick, got it.

rebochan:Outside of NMA you mean? Because outside of "ABANDON ALL HOPE!" Yahtzee-man, non-NMA Fallout fans are pretty much looking forward to this game.

Nice way to make a assumption for everyone.....

DamienHell:The fallout 3 awesome camera angle thing is only when you use VATS. So its optional, and I think it should get boring after the 20th or so time, cause I think VATS is a lame add-on that no self respecting FPS gamer will ever use short of being surrounded, having 2 health and only having the fatman, a gun that you NEVER want to fuck up a shot with

Thanks for proving the point that Fallout 3 is really just a FPS.

Norbington:

...It's not an FPS. It's an RPG and a system for targeting specific body parts was in both originals so it's not really an add on.

mitsoxfan:I think there are a lot of people disappointed that they took the FPS/OTS (over the shoulder) style approach, and implemented a VATs system that really isn't like a turn based combat mechanic.

It's all very different, and IMO, shouldn't be called Fallout 3. It should really either be a remake of Fallout 1, or called something like, a Boy and His Dog, the video game...

I agree it shouldn't be called Fallout 3.

Magnetic2:Hm.. yeah, Yahtzee mentioned fallout once in his Bioshock review, but besides that I guess if he did play it he didn't find to to be the creme de creme of western rpgs that many, many people have, or he'd bring it up more. Although, he's stated he only plays an rpg when effect by space radiation or something or other.

Fallout 3, having played both games long after they where released and really loving them, I think the sense of humor and xx content along with the killing kids thing could've been kept in had it been isometric. I mean, nobody complained about killing kids in Warcraft 3, cause they looked like deformed hobbits, but turn it into first person, make them realistic, and bingo, you've got something that will land you an OA rating.

So, rather than get creative, Bethsda said, lets just use this as grounds for tweaking the Elder Scrolls engine and do whatever the hell we want. Apparently what they loved about the game was all the violence, so keeping that in and putting that on display prominently was the number one priority, seeing from that's what they talk most about.

So tired of the cope out AO rating shit.....there is no proof that it would give them one and ALSO then why not release a special AO edition version on the PC. Also the WC3 thrown in is bullshit.

Indeed, Oblivion is a good example of action/combat game that they tried to toss off as a amazing RPG.

Here's my thought on fallout 3. The character from fallout is male, a boy - thus making him a fallout boy. which is shit. now going on the nature of "the industry" (be that video games, porn, music, porn music, or small yellow porcupines wearing shirts that say "Want a poke?") someone will catch on to this lucky connection and do some last minute redesign of mr. fallout boy. so it'll be a man in grey metal armour with a dodgey moustache and a gigantic great emo fringe crying about all the zombies and mean people. either that or fallout boy will start getting interesting...

TOGSolid:The fact that Spore is a Molyneux game is reason enough for me to not expect anything out of it. The man may have once been a gaming god, but I really feel he's getting a bit too full of himself. Fable 1 was really not that good, and Black and White 2 was a stripped down piece of crap. Some of his comments in past articles are also showing signs that he really doesn't think that he can do any wrong.

Needless to say, this is definitely a try before I buy title.

You must be a tad mixed up sir. Molyneux has nothing to do with Spore, he's developing Fable 2. Will Wright is the chief designer behind Spore.

Also, to the guy above this post: He's not a boy, he's a fully grown adult. "Fallout Boy" was originally a superhero who dealt with radiation in the Simpsons, not the modern band that everyone loves to hate. So even if the connection were made, that's the reasoning I'd fall back on.

Outside of NMA you mean? Because outside of "ABANDON ALL HOPE!" Yahtzee-man, non-NMA Fallout fans are pretty much looking forward to this game.

And here's an inactive member of both NMA and its more pus-filled cousin, DAC, to note that I'm very cynical about Fallout 3. It could well be a good game, I admit, but the feeling of Fallout and Fallout 2 seems to have been taken away to some extent, and the sub-genre change is an unnecessary one (it's hardly like Fallout was a sack of crap that didn't play at all correctly, is it?)

About VATS, it appears to me to be a mere "adaptation" of the Fallout targeting system, with the same principles but enough change in how it works for the fanboys to latch onto it as a point of how unnecessary changes were made to the gameplay when the Fallout isometric gameplay could have been adapted to modern rendering techniques and 3D top-down gameplay.

I got the impression that Yahtzee has never played the old Fallouts... Seeing that if he had he would have complained about how different FO3 was compared to the older ones...

Whatever the situation is with that, Yahtzee does know enough about the Fallout games to recognise the whole Karma system situation (see Bioshock review).

But my cynicism is slightly lifted by the fact that FO3 will be out soon, and so I get to make up my own mind on whether it's made of camel droppings or not.

Here's my thought on fallout 3. The character from fallout is male, a boy - thus making him a fallout boy. which is shit. now going on the nature of "the industry" (be that video games, porn, music, porn music, or small yellow porcupines wearing shirts that say "Want a poke?") someone will catch on to this lucky connection and do some last minute redesign of mr. fallout boy. so it'll be a man in grey metal armour with a dodgey moustache and a gigantic great emo fringe crying about all the zombies and mean people. either that or fallout boy will start getting interesting...

What the person two posts above me said, plus, even the cartoon character which represents Fallout is correctly called "Vault Boy".

Queer (as in "strange", you censoring ******** ;-)) ... I really thought Yahtzee would have liked the new PoP. OK so it's cel-shaded and there's a lot of bling in the art, but an action adventure game where you control two people as if they were one character actually sounds pretty snazzy and clever to me. For someone who seems to like some Cool New Idea(tm) now and then it's surprising that he'd seemingly rather have just a high-def remake of the sands of time series...

Oh and is his oppinion of the whole FF series based on anything more than the first disc of FF VII? =)

Let me just complement your complementation of Yahtzee's point. Being pessimist is a win-win position, because if you are right that the games will suck, you get the rewarding feeling of being able to say "Aha! I told you so!", and if they don't suck, you get the good games and have fun, and nobody will remember your pessimistic assessment. Unless, of course, you made your pessimist assessment into a video, but fuck that! You get the games!

now to the grim bit - sequelism. I know that many a 3D game now knows how to render stuff in 3D. It's a tried and trusted technology. What isn't so tried and tested is 'what a 3D game actually is'. Do you now realise, Yahtzee, that R.E.5 (and that's not a religious education revision) has won the coveted Gametrailers Game of the Show award? Anyway, cheese-riddled narrative aside, the art of what a 3D game might be is slowly but surely being understood, right? It's like all the previous 3D games since DOOM have been prototypical demos the publishers should have canned pre-release-mania leading up to the gameplay greatness hinted at by R.E.5. Ahum.

Good vid. Originality is taking too much risk these days, and that goes for both games and movies. Better to stick to what's proven to work, ie "a man in grey metal armour with a dodgey moustache and a gigantic great emo fringe crying about all the zombies and mean people" and sticking to the whole sci-fi shooter genre, with greyscale graphics.

I am mystified by the positivity surrounding that abysmal trailer for Watchmen. It looks like Snyder will continue his running habit of turning everything into a an action-cliché-infested cgi-fest that sort of seems like it's paying homage or respecting its source material, but this illusion disappears when words like "depth," "character," and "meaning" rear their ugly heads.

Seriously, how can you screw up the near-caveman simplicity of characters in 300? How did Leonidas become a wussy lover of his wife like that...while the line of dialogue from the book which is IN THE SCENE talks about how Sparta has no room for softness?!

Fantastic review ..but i must diferee with yatzhee... there is no point in being pesimist if the only reward is that if the game sucks you are smart then a fanboy...another thing im always optimist about a game if they suck is not my problem...I mean are we that childlish that we have to be the guy whose says i told you so everytime your prediction work....but this is a fantastic video... lol at the *clap*clap* OI moment and the other jokes...

i think is bit silly but i wish that he review LostWinds, and Ninja Gaiden

linkages555 is right. Being pessimistic makes it easier to play if the game is awful, but it also means that you turn into a miserable, grumpy computer nerd who really shouldn't waste money on games if they think they're going to hate it from the beginning. His jokes are great though!